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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24935398">Nothing Gold Can Stay</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laura_McEwan/pseuds/Laura_McEwan'>Laura_McEwan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:27:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>630</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24935398</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laura_McEwan/pseuds/Laura_McEwan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>As he faces down Darth Vader for the last time, Obi-Wan Kenobi reflects and feels.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Obi-Wan Kenobi/Bail Organa, Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Con*Strict 2020 Virtual Zine</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Nothing Gold Can Stay</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/splix/gifts">splix</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Nothing Gold can Stay</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Nature’s first green is gold,</em>
  <em><br/>
Her hardest hue to hold.<br/>
Her early leaf’s a flower;<br/>
But only so an hour.<br/>
Then leaf subsides to leaf.<br/>
So Eden sank to grief,<br/>
So dawn goes down to day.<br/>
Nothing gold can stay.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>~Robert Frost</em>
</p><p>I feel him, old as I am, and so long ago. In the moments before my death he comes to me in a vision, beckoning and ready. My body shudders as it remembers the press of his body against mine, his hair between my fingers, his skin upon my skin and the touch of his tongue just so, just there.</p><p>I glance at Luke and Leia. Oblivious twins watching, stricken, as Vader and I wield our power in our final, bittersweet fight. I am responsible for the life of their father, the death of their mother, and the choices made at their birth. I promised her…</p><p>Their truth will come out one day. I can only say I did my best, watching over Luke while hiding on Tatooine, and gratified for secret, coded messages from Bail about Leia. The years fall away and I am both heartened and weighed by their reunion.</p><p>Bail. My body remembers his, too. Qui-Gon, I am coming. Forgive me.</p><p>Had I been too audacious in loving another, brief as it was? The Code, the Code… and yet I have no regrets, only the sweet memory of a time before.</p><p>Forgive me.</p><p>The vision wavers as my old master smiles, full of love and full of Force-life. Again, he beckons.</p><p>What a life I have lived! The Force has blessed me and tasked me in equal measure. But I sense the nexus coming, burning, ready to divide the Darkness from the Light.</p><p>I have always had a touch of the Darkness. May the Force forgive me that, too. I used it when I needed, to make the Light more powerful. Qui-Gon knew. His guidance kept it at bay; his love brought it out to serve our selfish wants…and needs.</p><p>It helped me raise Anakin. I didn’t mean for it to take him, to turn him as it did.</p><p>For that, I must forgive myself.</p><p>The scared boy I was tasked with training, the exasperating young man I grew to love, the angry man who slayed Jedi younglings without a second thought – my Anakin strides around me, swings his saber before me, declaring his hatred in an unrecognizable voice, glorious and cruel in the black, heavy machinery that keeps him breathing, keeps him alive, the technology that saved him from his nearly fiery end but also sealed his fate to the Dark side…</p><p>…away from me, away from Qui-Gon, away from the Order that had raised him, taught him, called him their own…</p><p>The dead younglings cry out to me. I hear them, I hear them all.</p><p>Anakin. I loved him like a brother. He is lost, lost in becoming Darth Vader, lost to the Darkness and he must send me now to my power, to my love, my master, my own. To the Light.</p><p>A flash of joy fills me.</p><p>It is time.</p><p>I hear Luke’s voice crying out in the moment the deadly red saber strikes me.</p><p>And I am already gone; my cloak falls to the floor but I am wrapped in love from Luke, though he does not yet know it. With love from Bail, who will never forget.</p><p>With that tiny flame of love from the boy I raised.</p><p>Pulled through to the next world, enveloped in a hug and I am twenty again, silvery brown hair surrounding me, blue eyes crinkling, a kiss…Qui-Gon is in my arms, whole.</p><p>I breathe.</p><p>It is good.</p><p>I am loved.</p><p>I will always be loved.</p><p>Farewell.</p><p>~end</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Much thanks to MrsHamill, ride_4ever, katbear, bradygirl_12, temve, and j_crew_guy. I asked for prompt words and was provided with: Remember, Audacious, Oblivious, Joy, Good, and Hug. </p><p>Constricted by Plot theme: Redemption</p></blockquote><div class="children module" id="children">
  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
  <ul>
    <li>
        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25167895">Art for Nothing Gold Can Stay by Laura McEwan</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/sian1359/pseuds/sian1359">sian1359</a>
    </li>
  </ul>
</div></div></div>
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